Mary Schmidt - Community Capacity Building



Mary Schmidt
University of Idaho Extension
Room #3 Courthouse
Grangeville, Idaho 83530
208-983-7951
mschmidt@uidaho.edu

Mary Schmidt provides education and technical assistance in leadership development, strengthening organizations, and after-school/youth programs.  Mary is in Grangeville with UI Extension.

 After-School Youth Development Program:

The Centers for Discovery after-school project assisted the communities of Cottonwood, Elk City, Grangeville, Kamiah, Kooskia, and Riggins to establish locally managed, holistic learning programs that focused on the emotional, physical and intellectual development of youth.  A 3-year U.S. Department of Education grant provided $1,217,831 per year "seed monies" to establish the after-school and summer enrichment programs in these 6 rural communities.  The project was a collaboration between school districts #241, #304, and #242, University of Idaho Extension and Spectrum Consulting.

Mary Schmidt served as the project director, providing leadership to the overall project, technical assistance to the community boards, and training to community after-school staff.

After-School Sustainability Project:

The After-School Sustainability project assisted the six individual Centers for Discovery program boards in sustaining their respective after-school programs.  These efforts included marketing & communications training, leadership & board development, fundraising training and consulting, financial recording keeping training and the development of individual business plans for each of the six programs.

Community Leadership Plenty Project:

A new leadership project is helping Elk River, Kamiah, and Orofino develop and support leaders to work with local citizens in creating a promising future.  With funding from the Northwest Area Foundation, Mary is helping to train future leaders in these communities through Leadership Plenty, a nine-session community leadership development program.